It’s amazing at how much can change with one simple EvilCast podcast. This past week, while recording, I was discussing what games I was playing like we do every week. I said I was burning through my Stack of Shame with the completion of Halo 3 last week, and I’ve started Resistance 2. Somehow, that got the conversation shifting to what I should be playing right now vs. what I am playing, so the entire crew “helped” me reorganize the priority list of my Stack of Shame. It was unanimously voted that I drop Resistance 2 immediately and move it down my list. Then it was almost unanimously voted that I play BioShock immediately. The one person who did not vote for BioShock had not played BioShock, so he couldn’t fully comment.

I agreed, and I reorganized my stack into how it is on the right. No, Assassin’s Creed Revelations was not in the voting pool, but it has to take priority soon. Even with an impending copyright infringement lawsuit, I believe that Assassin’s Creed 3 will release on schedule, and therefore, I need to be prepared. And yes, I’m going to somehow do this while I keep my current review schedule. In unrelated news, I may not finish The Witcher 2 until the end of the year.

So I did start BioShock on Friday. I have a rare talent in keeping blind to spoilers of pretty much any game. The only one I failed at was FFVII, but to be fair, that game is 15 years old. And playing Crisis Core first wouldn’t have helped matters at all anyway. But I digress. The point in me saying that I have such a talent was to explain that I knew absolutely nothing about BioShock before playing other than the fact that it takes place in a utopia under water. Oh, and I knew that all screenshots of Big Daddies and Little Sisters creeped me the fuck out. The main reason why I had put off playing it for so long, despite the critical acclaim, was that I was afraid it would be scary. I’m not a fan of horror and suspense, and Gears of War and Resistance have put me on enough edge about things jumping out at me in the dark. Everyone assured me that it would not scare me. I double-checked with another horror-pansy friend, and he affirmed what my friends said.

And so, I took the plunge. And I was definitely not prepared for what was waiting for me.

It’s true that it isn’t scaring me, but it’s so damn disturbing that that makes it scary enough. I’ve only played for a few hours, and that was enough to make me take a mental break for a bit. I had no idea what I was in store for, but this certainly wasn’t anywhere near my mind. The writers behind this mess could give Stephen King a run for his money when it comes to the mind fuck.

The gameplay was also a huge surprise to me. I knew it was FPS, and that’s all I thought it was. In some ways, I wish that’s all it was, because I really hate coming across my burn victims. If I didn’t have to search them for money and bullets, I’d completely ignore them, but ugh, I have to look. And it really ain’t pretty. So damn disturbing.

While I’m getting all of these genetic powers to do horrible things to people, do I ever get an upgrade for running? Jack really sucks at getting away from Big Daddies. All I want is the ability to run. I think all Jack can do is walk fast, but if you press the analog stick too hard, the jerk walks fast while crouching, which means he doesn’t do anything quickly but die. Jerk.

Let me just get this out of the way: the ending to Halo 2 was unbelievably awful. Or, should I say non-ending? The non-ending to Final Fantasy XIII-2 was better than that. But all in all, Halo 2 was unbelievably awful. I might have felt differently back when it first released, but eh, it definitely didn’t age well.

So let’s move on to Halo 3, a far superior game in practically every way. What do I love about Halo 3?

• No Cortana yammering in my ear. I don’t like her creepy holographic flashbacks either, but at least she’s not always telling me what to do like a computerized Navi.
• Fighting with the Arbiter and the Covenant Elites is always hilarious. Their comments completely crack me up; although, their hilarity will never top the Covenant Grunts.
• I’ve only run into the Flood once, and I’m in the 7th chapter of 9.
• My Marine teammates stay alive longer than 5 seconds.

That said, I have learned the hard way to never ride with AI drivers for very long. And really, I can’t win in these situations. I tried driving, but then they wouldn’t shoot at what I needed and we died. If I man the turret, they will drive directly toward a Wraith tank and kill us. Or they’ll get the damn Warthog stuck on a rock, thereby forcing me to get out of the Warthog and toss a grenade under the rock so that the vehicle will dislodge itself. Sometimes the Marines hop out of the Warthog. Sometimes they don’t. And then they die. The Scorpion tank is by far the best Marine vehicle in that I can drive AND shoot at the same time. Too bad they don’t give enough tank missions.

So essentially, whenever I’m in a vehicle situation, I man the turret until we take down a Ghost or a Prowler. I then jump out and run screaming toward the enemy vehicle and live ten times longer than any other Marine vehicle. Idiot drivers.

And how am I doing with Witcher 2? I’m never going to complete the first chapter, thanks to all of these sidequests. At least with this game, unlike Reckoning, all of these sidequests feel like they matter in what is going on with the world. I’ll let you know in 60 hours.

I’ve kind of had and RPGtastic week this past week with both Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and The Witcher 2. Sad to say, I’ve already gotten a bit bored with Reckoning just because the number of sidequests are not only overkill, but they’re virtually the same. They also rarely affect anything in the main storyline, so I decided to limit my sidequesting to just the faction quests and the main story.

They’re still boring. It sucks. The combat is really a lot of fun and I really want to like this game. I have a feeling, though, that the game is best played in short bursts and sporadically so that you aren’t spending hours at once playing the same quests. A Twitter friend said that Reckoning was incredibly padded, and I’m starting to definitely feel that. Such an incredible shame.

I broke it up a little bit to sample The Witcher 2 before I went on the EvilCast that night in order to discuss it a little with Ross. HOLY CRAP that game is hard. The combat is ungodly complex, and there’s so much to remember to do that the tutorial (that was specifically added for the console version) is almost worthless.

If it wasn’t for the guide, I never would have survived my first battle. Note I didn’t say first boss fight; I mean my first regular fight with grunt knights. I also need the guide just to remember how many spells Geralt has at his disposal. I’m so used to being led along and gradually introduced to spells and combat techniques. This one literally throws everything at you, kicks you out the door, and says, “Yeah, have fun out there!” This is going to be one interesting ride, that’s for sure.

Since I went out of town this weekend, no Halo 2 was accomplished, but I did manage to get some much needed Vita time. Finally checked out Escape Plan, a game I bought way back around the Vita’s launch but never got around to. That is one adorably frustrating game. I see the appeal, and it’s fun for the most part, but my lack of patience makes it very difficult for me to play it for long periods of time. I have to admit though…all the ways Lil and Laarg can die are quite hilarious.

I meant to play some Uncharted: Golden Abyss on the return flight, but instead, I zonked out while listening to music. Sad…maybe. But I really enjoyed that nap.

I received my review copy of Binary Domain last Saturday and pretty much worked on nothing except Binary Domain. It was hard, as The Witcher 2 arrived on Tuesday along with a copy of the strategy guide, but I remained vigilant. Even playing on Normal, the game does not take that long to complete, and it was officially conquered on Friday afternoon.

That game was far more fun than I expected it to be. With a name like Binary Domain, I completely expected it to be similar to The Syndicate, and I couldn’t have been further from the truth. It’s really more of a Gears of War game with robots and a touch of SEGA flair. The characters were entertaining, and holy crap was the story fantastic. Just when you thought you had one twist in the plot, it surprised you with another.

The game wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the means, but it was very enjoyable, and it’s a downright shame that it only sold 20,000 units since its launch in March. I have a feeling that it’s going to go the sad route of Vanquish, which never got the attention it deserved. Maybe it will become a sleeper hit, and then maybe a sequel will be made. The foundation has been laid for there to be a sequel, and it would be a shame to never see it come to fruition.

Due to the changes my E3 schedule has brought on, I started  Halo 2 this weekend. Holy cow that game looks terrible. I haven’t played a PS2 or GameCube game in ages, so blasting back to the early aughts was a bit of a shock. I’m sure it looked fantastic upon release–I remember the days of the Halo 2 flu epidemic–but it hasn’t held up well. On the plus side, there are virtually no load times.

Since there are no Achievements to obtain and I’m running on a tight schedule, I’m playing it on Easy and burning right through it. According to the guide, I only have about six chapters left to get through, so that should give you an idea how easy it really is. I’ll put it this way if you need better examples. I never have to take cover. EVER. I’ve had a shotgun to the face, and all it did was lower my shields. Easy almost means “win” in this case. I wish I could say that it means that I’ve never died, but once the Flood appeared (grumble, grumble) that statistic collapsed in a hurry. I fucking hate the Flood. Give me Covenant to shoot at; at least they’re entertaining.

I really don’t have an idea as to what is going on in Halo 2, but I’ve been told the story doesn’t become clear until Halo 3. Not sure what is up with that magical number 3, but whatever. At least it’s fun to play, and it was a little fun playing on the side of the Covenant, even though the Arbiter’s armor sucks monkey balls. I never died until I had to play as him. I guess that my friend Blake is right; Master Chief is a badass.

Shhhh…don’t let him know that he’s right about anything. It will just go to his head.

I’ve been in a gaming rut for awhile now; finding solace only in Plants vs. Zombies and LEGO Harry Potter. I forced myself out of my funk this past week–with the help of writing an article for Gaming Angels about it–and finally cracked open Syndicate. Holy crap is that game bad.

I know that reviews haven’t been that favorable, but I rarely reviews before I play a game because I like to go into playing a game with a fresh, open mind. In this case, I probably should have saved myself the trouble. Essentially, Syndicate is a Deus Ex: Human Revolution copycat. It’s not a complete clone by any stretch of the means, but the similarities are to prevalent for me to see anything else. Unfortunately, Syndicate executes nothing very well. The premise is kind of cool, but the delivery is full of fail. I played halfway through the game and decided that life was too short to continue to play something that I didn’t even find fun. My stack of shame is too tall for that.

So I went back to Kingdoms of Amalur, and of course I did nothing but side quests and faction quests for several hours. I know there’s a real story in here somewhere, but I’m having a lot of fun not progressing the story.

And then everything screeched to a halt on Saturday, when I received my review copy of Binary Domain. Yeah, I know it’s late, but better late than never. Binary Domain reminds me A LOT of Gears of War–it even has a character who looks and acts like Cole Train–just with robots instead of ugly creatures. However, the game’s premise is far more interesting than just shooting robots, albeit if that is all it was, I’d be happy with that too. I won’t get into it any further as I’m playing it for review for GA, but I will say that the three hours I spent playing BD greatly surpassed the 10 hours I committed to Syndicate. Gameplay is fun, dialogue is funny, and the story is actually intriguing. Such a shame that the game did not sell well. I’m hoping it will turn into a sleeper hit, because I don’t think SEGA gets enough credit for its shooters.